Flying a mission off the USS Constellation in the Gulf of Alaska in 1986, my F-14 was first down the chute. The weather was reported right at minimums - 200' ceiling and half mile visibility. As we let down I asked if the Landing Signal Officer (LSO) wanted our landing light on as it makes it easier to see the plane through the fog. The LSO said no. As we approached 3/4 mile (12-18 seconds from touchdown) from the ship where we should be able see it visually we still could not see it. I told my pilot to fly the needles (instruments) and I would continue to look over his left shoulder for the visual landing aid (meatball). We continued our approach and I finally called the ball indicating we had visually acquired the ship. The time that lapsed from me calling the ball to our plane touching down was six seconds. As we came to a stop the LSO called for all the other planes approaching the ship to turn their landing lights on. As it turns out, none of the other aircraft made it aboard due to the fog. They all diverted to Elmendorf AFB and spent the entire day and evening drinking beer and having fun.

The moral of the story - when it's foggy it's safer and more fun to stay home and drink beer or coffee.

I was fishing Lake Arrowhead in Wichita Falls, TX on May 27th 2007. Showed up at the lake at zero dark thirty...first one at the ramp. I had planned to run to one of my favorite spots on the lake, but the fog was so thick that you could barely see your hand in front of your face. So I played it safe and just ran down a bank line by the launch. About 200 yards from the launch, I heard bass busting on top. A couple of times it sounded like someone threw a boulder in the water. I picked up a Spook, and a toad immediately destroyed it. It was on a long cast, so it was by far the best fish fight that I've ever had. The fish ended up weighing 10.30. When the sun came up, the day stayed heavily cloudy and I ended up catching what would have been a 25lb stringer, but unfortunately it wasn't a tourney. Best fishing day of my life!

In the days before GPS and without a compass..My partner and I were fishing the backside of Pringle Lake on Matagorda Island. We had our limit of nice trout and were wading to catch our limit of reds when the fog came in off the gulf.. Ouch!! Finding the boat was bad enough but the trip back to POC was a real trip. We were running a 16 ft Shoalwater tunnel hull with the motor mounted as high as it would go.We left the the back of Pringle Lake twice only to wind up back where we started near an old duck blind 5 minutes later. You got it..The motor was mounted so high we would run in a circle. We finally decided we could run the "great circle" all the way around Matagorda Bay. We ran as shallow as we could keeping the shoreline in sight when ever possible. We only got lost 3 times and made the normal 30 minute trip back in 3 1/2 hours. Yes, we both a compass on Monday. Call that young and dumb.. when we were in our 20's we all are super man... LOL
1Fisher77316

This scares me to this day - My brother and I were fishing 10 miles off of Key West in my 17' boat. We were drifting with our lines out, in absolute pea soup fog. In the distance we heard a fog horn, and thought perhaps it was the Coast Guard warning boaters to be careful since fog is not that common there. The horn sound got closer and closer. We thought if we see a boat, we'll just move. Then, about 100 yards out we saw a white object, about 10' tall coming towards us. It looked like a charter fishing boat. Then suddenly, a huge black shadow appeared in front of us. A gigantic Chinese freighter was bearing right down on us. The white object was the wake the ship was pushing up in front. I dove for the controls, turned the key, nothing. Don't panic my brother said. On the second try the motor started and I gunned it. The freighter was so close by then that it ran over our lines. We looked straight up and saw several members of the crew shaking their fists at us. That fog horn was their warning to us as they were too big to turn quickly enough. My brother and I still talk about it.

1980's Fork Bell branch, runs east to west 9am fog.
Had to wait till sunset to find my way out.

Other people scare me in the fog, I refuse to fish main lake stuff when the fog is thick. Cause I know people are running based on their GPS.

Me too.

First time to Monticello. One cold night in December and we get to the ramp about midnight. Of course you can't even see the end of the ramp. As we're launching Jerry Dean (Honey Hole) and another guy pull up and launch. They were headed to where we wanted to go so we asked if we could follow them. Jerry said "sure, come on!" He took off like he was shot out of a cannon. We didn't make it 100 yards before we had to shut down cuz we couldn't see his anchor light any more. That was a long idle to the promised land

We also idled in the fog that day and went in circles a couple times.. Man it was THICK! There were a couple boats that were flying in the fog however. I won't mention any names Vince! Same thing on Cypress at our Championship one year. We are idling and a boat flies by us on plane... Scary!

T-bend late 70's. Fishing a tournament out of Flying bridge in the spring. We got to our fishing spot on 1215 when a total white out fog came up. I could barely see my partner standing in the back of the boat. About an hr. later we heard a motor idling toward us from the main lake. It got close enough we could here the men talking and it was obvious they were totally lost. Over the next 3 hrs. they would come close only to drift away (circling). Finally around 11 am the fog started to lift slightly and the boat came close again. Only they saw us this time. We heard one guy say look a boat, and the other said "yeah, well they are lost as we are because they are fishing in 35ft of water". I hollered back, we were sitting on EW14 boat lane and fishing in 10 ft. of water.
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They idled over an said we have been idling across the lake for the last 4 hrs. I told him "No, You have been circling for the last 4 hrs.". The driver swore he was not circling. One man asked me which direction was the bank. I pointed in the direction and said "Over there about 300 yds." They left, idling off in the fog.

About 20 min. later they came idling back toward us from another direction(Circling again). This time the driver had to admit he was completely turned around. I told him to use the Rod and Line trick (see original post). The did and set off. About 15 min. later we heard them screaming they had found land. My buddy and I laughed at this incident for years.

Nothing life threatening because like a lot of you, I refuse to run in fog after I had this incident. But I did have a morning at Rayburn in late 90's that reminded me how stupid one can look without a compass or GPS. I took off of work one Friday and launched at the Caney boat ramp (Back when Caney was nice and the Govt. actually still took care of the place!) I had caught some nice fish on the flats between Boggy and The Forest the previous weekend and was determined to get back there. On any other day its a nice 10 minute run at 45-50 mph, but this particular morning saw fog as thick as I have ever seen anywhere. I was able to make it out to the little Caney point on the main lake with no problem. Once I rounded the point and head north/nw, I was sure I had the boat pointed in the right direction. Looking back, I know I should have just hugged the bank all the way to preachers, but being stupid, I put the boat on plane at about 30-35 mph. After about 5 minutes, I shut down in an area I just knew had to be the edge of the forest. The lake was about 5-6 foot low so I knew I would start seeing some stickups soon. WRONG! I never saw one stickup. I just kept idling. No sun, no wind, nothing. Appx an hour and half later, I FINALLY saw pine trees again and began fishing an area that I had no clue about. It was not until around 9:30 or 10 am that the fog finally lifted and I realized where I was, or at least I thought I was. I was convinced I was still on the main lake, wrong again. I was in the back of Veach Basin. Convinced I was still on the main lake, you can imagine me trying to put this puzzle together. Because in the fog, Veach is big enough to look like the main lake!! It wasnt until around 11 that morning that I actually saw the island and the stickups in the mouth of Veach that I knew where I was actually at. Quite a humbling experience.

When Fork still had all the standing timber in it I new if I could get back up in those forest that I would find fish that had never seen a artificial bait, so I put in at the bridge with my 12" john boat and trolling motor. After about an hour in there the fog and mist rolled in so thick you couldn't tell any direction. and it stayed. After about 3-4 hours I started trying to find my way out. Took me another 3 hours to find my way out of the trees. Nothing like being lost in the forest with a dying trolling motor battery.
Didn't get a bite the whole time either.

years ago before GPS and cellphones I lived in Greenville,Ms...one afternoon ,my son age 12 or so,an older guy and I were duck hunting across the Miss river from Greenville...we had launched in Greenville and were hunting across the river and 2-3 miles upstream...
late afternoon fog rolled in and within minutes it was too dense to see anything...the older fellow with me was a retired towboat pilot and we decided to get lined up on rock dike and try to run straight back across river...by this time darkness was setting in...we made two tries to hold the boat in a straight line and make it across but both times we ended up back on same bank....we could hear towboat engines running intermittently but couldn't tell if they were tied up or running in the fog....sometimes they did run in fog with their radar and biggest danger on Miss river is getting run over by a towboat......
we decided to tie the boat off and walk out...several miles through the woods with a rinky dink flashlight but finally made up to the levee...
there was a shotgun tenant house down at foot of levee and I thought they probably didn't have a telephone but maybe we could talk them into taking us to a phone down near the Greenville bridge...
to my surprise they not only had a princess phone but a color TV...and an truck that ran good enough to take us down to the Greenville bridge where one of our family came to pick us up.....needless to say,our families were much relieved that we were ok....got a buddy of mine to run me across the river the next morning and retrieve my boat....

Few years back fishing a tourney on Cedar Creek we were on plane to our first spot. It was in our "Big Bass tourney" phase so of course it was just breaking safelight. All of a sudden a wall of fog set in.... I get a really uneasy and ominous feeling. I decided to throttle down and just as we came off plane and just as I was about to tell partner to start looking for boats a boat came WOT about 20ft across our bow. They never saw us. Spooked us so bad it took us an hour just to get our wits back. That was the last big bass tourney we have ever fished...

Back before GPS we were trying to get from the ramp on Monticello directly across the lake as there was grass over there at the time. My friend headed that way and about 20 or so minutes later we ended right back at the ramp. He said "you want to try?" So I did and we ended up on the other side of the lake but to the right of the power plant...... A little better I guess....